Stainless, Shinjuku

It's like an 11-minute meditation on humanity and our shared experience. What it is, literally, is a pass through a subway station shot at very high speed and then played back very slowly. Bobby Solomon at The Fox Is Black calls it "an incredibly engrossing 11 minutes." I'll echo that and say it's a mesmerizing 22 minutes--because you'll watch it twice. It was made by Adam Magyar, and his web site includes videos from several subway stations.

This is what you're supporting when you gamble, kids.

Elaine Wynn, of the super-mega-rich casino Wynns, is apparently the person who paid the record-setting price for the Bacon triptych a few months ago. I had read that the Qatari royal family was the likely secret buyer, but I guess I read the wrong rumors.

Spreading the Virus

So, um, here I am am posting a story I just saw that I think is really interesting. The story begins by noting, in so many words, that pretty much everyone in the world but me has already seen the story. But just in case you're like me and haven't seen it yet: "San Antonio Student's Artwork Goes Viral, Sparks Worldwide Nationalistic Bickering."

Here it is on Reddit.
Here it is in the Daily Mail.
Here it is in The Atlantic.
Here it is on Boing Boing.

So, remember that Picasso?

Congratulations to Jefrrey Gonano of Wexford, Pennsylvania.

Want to see that astonishingly expensive Bacon triptych?

Go to Portland. But hurry.

I bought a Picasso drawing for around a hundred bucks!

Mine, all mine?

Maybe that's premature. I bought a lottery ticket for 100 Euros--around $135. If I win the raffle, I have a 1 in 50,000 chance, then I win a Picasso drawing from 1914.

All proceeds from the lottery go to relief organizations for Tyre, Lebanon.

Questions I've been asked so far:
  * No, I will not just hang it in my living room to get damaged or stolen. I'm aware these things need special handling.
  * Yes, the winner (or a legal proxy) has to go to France to pick it up. I've never been to France, and I'm looking forward to the trip.
  * No, I will not let anyone lick the drawing, no matter how much they enjoy licking great art (you know who you are).

For those of us who like art And economics

SMU in Dallas has a good business school, and they have one of the best arts administration schools. The two have been getting together more often, and they've done some interesting studies into what makes an art organization (which is pretty much a business) thrive.

Piano in Texas

(photo)

Sometimes we need an outsider to tell us what our familiar home space is really like. So please read this funny interview with Renzo Piano, enthusiastic Texas lover. (Piano is the superstar architect who designed, among other things, the Menil Collection building in Houston. His addition to the already-perfect Kimbel Art Museum in Fort Worth opened last week.)

Ai Weiwei goes to prison again

Not detained for tax evasion again; this time he's organizing an exhibit at the iconic Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay. Because Ai Weiwei is currently prohibited from travelling outside China, an intermediary will oversee the actual installation. I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.

A polar bear authenticates a Pollock painting?

This painting definitely is(n't) a Pollock. Photo.

This story in the New York Times looks at the conflict between forensic evidence pointing to the authorship of a painting and expert aesthetic analysis authenticating the authorship of the painting.

This particular example, a painting by Jackson Pollock (or not), brings up the weird possibility: what if Jackson Pollock put this paint on this surface, but it's still not a "Pollock"?